The Quest for the Best Ice Cream of New England

Nothing can better capture the spirit of a small New England town than visiting its seasonal ice creamery on a warm summer evening.

RoadfoodDigest.com New England residents Chris, Amy and Stephen have frequented many ice cream stands and read many articles claiming to find the best, but were never content with reading about other people’s experiences - we had to find out for ourselves! Our goal was to taste our way throughout New England on a comprehensive journey to find the very best ice cream and hot fudge sauce. To make things even more exciting, we did this over two weekends so all the tasting notes and experiences remain fresh in our taste buds. To our knowledge, nobody has ever visited and rated 50 New England ice creameries, and certainly not in such a short period of time.

How We Rated the Ice Cream and Hot Fudge Sauce

The ice cream, fudge, and overall experience was rated on a scale from 1-5. The following is how we defined each value:

The lowest rating and is an ice cream shop we don’t recommend if you’re yearning for a true New England ice
cream experience.

Ice cream and
fudge worth eating if you happen to be in the area. Since we are rating
the very best, a score of "two" is actually quite good and would
qualify for a listing on Roadfood.com.

Ice cream and fudge worth traveling across several towns to eat. A very memorable experience despite a few minor flaws.

Ice cream and fudge worth traveling across state lines to experience.
Everything is fully satisfying and the entire experience is distinct
and nearly flawless.

Epic ice
cream and fudge. World class, highly memorable, and only reserved for
the very, very best. The kind of ice cream we could lick a bowl clean
even if we started on a full stomach. Only a select few of our 50 rated
places might meet these criteria.